israeli politics

Amsterdam 9.11.24

We took a walk in Amsterdam this summer with a local guide.  A group of anonymoua tourists seeing the local sites.  After the usual red light district, to my surprise I found myself in what was the Jewish neighborhood before WWII.  The guide gave us a very sympathetic spiel on the Jewiah community and how they were betrayed during the war, and although he underplayed the facts he overplayed the sympathy to the Jews and the blame of the non-Jewish community.  I wondered if he knew we were Jewish –

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israeli politics

Dutch Jews -9.11.24

This is much more information about what we were talking about yesterday.   David de Bruijn 

Last Night’s Pogrom in Amsterdam

Israeli soccer fans were ambushed, beaten, and pleaded with their assailants: “not Jewish, not Jewish.” I grew up in the Netherlands. I wasn’t surprised.

https://www.thefp.com/p/pogrom-amsterdam-antisemitism?utm_campaign=email-post&r=a7sj7&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

 

 

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israeli politics

Amsterdam 1944, 2024 -8.11.24

I am just at the point in my research on Kurt Gerron where I’m chronicling how he was at first lauded when he escaped from the Nazis to Holland, and he created at least one film basic to Dutch culture but then was ostracized and given up together with all the Dutch Jews to the camps, t0 Westerbrook, to Thereisenstadt and finally to Auschwitz.  And last night was no different.  The jovial local population felt unable to defend the visitors to their land as they were chased and beaten. Even the police stood by as the the soccers fans from Israel were thrown into the canals.  

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israeli politics

shopping at Night - 7.11.24

I never go shopping – it’s always on line.  Who cares if they skip half of the list?  I can always make something out of what they bring me and blame the delivery boy for when it turns out bad.  

But this week I was too exhausted even to order properly, so I wound up with no vegetables to make for Friday night and appointments all morning and lunch time so no time to get to the supermarket.  

That’s how we found ourselves shopping on a thursday night.  The worst time to shop – because everyone is exhausted and anxious – because the sabbath is coming and all the stores in the neighborhood will be closed and maybe we’ll be bombed. 

Notice that the bomb is the least of our worried.  The stocking up for the sabbath is more complicated…

 

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israeli politics

Drone Season - 11.6.24

We had a real barrage of rockets this morning.  Down in the shelter, Ezi hung up a new emergency light, and Lyn said, can I help?  Yes, come here, I said, and when she did I made her cheer him on with me.  I wonder whether the tenants and visitors from the street think I’m mad, but I really am determined not to let the Hizballah think we’re suffering from their rockets.  This afternoon there was another batch.  It’s a real bummer to stop everything just because someone is trying to kill you, but I guess we can’t ignore rockets the size of my car.

 

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israeli politics

When you Walk Through a Storm - 11.6.24

When I was in sixth grade I was in a choir, and incredibly absorbed in the songs.  Until one day the choirmaster stopped next to me and listened – and decided that I was the one who was throwing the whole choir off.   I remember every song by heart, especially the last song I got to sing before I was thrown out.  And today I kept singing it to myself:

When you walk through a storm

hold your head up high

and don’t be afraid of the dark

At the end of the storm is a golden sky

and the sweet silver song of a lark.

walk on through the wind walk on through the rain

though your dreams be tossed and blown

walk on walk on with hope in your heart

and you’ll never walk alone

And here’s Elvis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=7NurYDwKZ9g

I AM NOT GOING TO LET A COUPLE OF AUTOCRATS RUN MY LIFE

The song, in Rogers and Hammerstein’s Carousel, came out near the end of WWII, the month I was born, and must have been a great comfort to many people.  I never thought of it as religious, but social.  At the end of the play the whole cast comes out and sings it, and it always reminds me of how so many people in despair were comforted after the war by the company of others.  And today too I feel comfort in the sharing of hope with others.

But I’ll never get over not being able to sing.

 

 

 

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